Infrared Power

Tailored Heating - Plastics and Composites Industry

Plastics welding

The power densities of VCSEL heating modules are sufficient to melt many plastic materials at high speed, depending on the infrared absorption characteristics. In a typical transmission welding process, the laser beam is radiating through a transparent plastic part and absorbed at the second part, where the laser energy melts the material in the joining zone and forming a firm welding joint.
For black plastic parts, typically large area simultaneous welding within a second is feasible. As VCSEL laser modules do not use a focused beam, also transmission welding of foams is possible.

Furniture production

Another VCSEL-based welding process is used for woodworking machines, where high-quality plastic material is applied to furniture panel edges. A laser system for seamless edge banding of furniture panels is used in series machines of IMA Klessmann GmbH, a technology leader in industrial machines for furniture production. The IMALUX direct-laser system is simple to use and offers an excellent price-performance ratio compared to conventional heating systems and current diode-laser solutions.

The laser units have proven very robust to operate in harsh workshop conditions. They are providing high power density on a large treatment area directly, without the need for expensive and delicate optics. The individual control of heating zones enables flexible optimization of heating profiles and thereby optimal product quality.

Composite manufacturing

In fiber/tape placement processes for manufacturing of lightweight composite parts, heat is applied to attach the fibers or tapes on the surface. Here, the new VCSEL heat sources offer an attractive alternative to conventional systems using e.g. halogen lamps with relatively slow process speed or fiber-guided lasers with complex and expensive beam forming optics.
Depending on materials and process parameters, partial tacking up to full consolidation can be realized. Benefits of the VCSEL systems are

• High process speed by power density of 100 W/cm²
• Precisely controllable, dynamic heating profiles
• Compact source head
• Localized heat, surrounding machine parts stay cool
• Scalable layup width, adaptable to tape formats
• Lower system cost compared to conventional laser systems